jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 10, 2017 11:15:49 GMT -5
Not so fast. I must re-run this to make sure I have it right. There is some drama: I left town with vibe running. Wife turned it off 2.5 days later, but it had broken a belt. So I do not know if it ran a whole day or close to 2.5 days. Secondly, the vibe had AO 14,000 polish in it too. So that may have polished it. This time I will clean it well and run ONLY pumice. The obsidian had about a 220 or 500 finish before putting it in vibe. I was surprised to see a fine polish on it so fast. It is normally slow to polish using aluminum oxide. I have a beef about running Mohs 9 aluminum oxide on a Mohs 5.5 stone like obsidian. IMO it needs a softer abrasive so it will break down. Pumice is Mohs 6. Run with small agates, no ceramic media, and Borax. 2 tablespoons each pumice and Borax for 14 pounds of rock. The pumice I used is an abrasive grade called size '0 to 1/2' whatever that means. It is a coarse size, looks like 80 grit. 2F and 4F is the finer grades of abrasive pumice. Pumice is commonly used to pre-polish and even polish glass. Glass = Obsidian so it should be appropriate application. There is also a few fluorites and glass in there. I must see how they fared.(forgot to pull them) So I will do a clean out. Crank vibe up. add water, 2 tbsp pumice, 2 tbsp Borax, same stones, plus some obsidian with 220-500 finish. Check vibe in a few hours to see if the coarse pumice has removed the polish on the polished obsidian. And keep checking it to monitor rate of polish created on stones. Hopefully it will break down from ~80 grit to polish. This is the obsidian. Left is after, right is before. The polished one is shinier than my photos tell. This is the 0 to 1/2 pumice, as mentioned looks to be 80 grit or close some more during clean out
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Post by grumpybill on Oct 10, 2017 14:34:37 GMT -5
Following closely because I'm going to make my first attempt at obsidian next month.
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ChicagoDave
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Post by ChicagoDave on Oct 10, 2017 14:44:11 GMT -5
I must've gotten lucky with all my obsidian batches. "Liquid wet" shine using the standard Lot-O recipe many users have posted (500 to 1000 to Polish - all AO). I even ran mine in the Lot-O with all kinds of other agates and jaspers. Had a bunch get chipped, but the shine was still great. I think the secret sauce for obsidian is actually the vibe.
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fishnpinball
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Post by fishnpinball on Oct 10, 2017 14:54:49 GMT -5
Looking good. My vibe tends to bruise some of the softer stones, though I haven't noticed that as much with the obsidian ends I have thrown in with agates. Is there an easy way to reduce the amplitude of the vibration by adjusting the weight position?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 10, 2017 17:54:00 GMT -5
Following closely because I'm going to make my first attempt at obsidian next month. I will know soon if pumice will work. I must've gotten lucky with all my obsidian batches. "Liquid wet" shine using the standard Lot-O recipe many users have posted (500 to 1000 to Polish - all AO). I even ran mine in the Lot-O with all kinds of other agates and jaspers. Had a bunch get chipped, but the shine was still great. I think the secret sauce for obsidian is actually the vibe. Using 4-5 steps in rotary and Lot-O will make fine polishes on obsidian. I have seen your mastery. My vibe is not so friendly with obsidian or I don't know what I am doing lol. Can you tell me roughly the amount of days you kept the obsidian in the Lot-O ? You may want to keep it secret as I believe you are the resident champ and congrats on that. I understand if it is proprietary. Looking good. My vibe tends to bruise some of the softer stones, though I haven't noticed that as much with the obsidian ends I have thrown in with agates. Is there an easy way to reduce the amplitude of the vibration by adjusting the weight position? I have some bruising on obsidian too. Especially if the pieces are golf ball/ping pong ball size. Some vibes have adjustments on them. Which one do you have ? I believe it is the amplitude. I would be nervous about constraining the amplitude of the vibration mechanically as it may heat up the motor. I think the best way is by reducing the off-balance if possible. I did have a good up date using the pumice. I did a clean out and started with fresh pumice. Cleaned all AO polish off. After 3 hours the pumice polish on the obsidian is starting to dissappear. The reason that is good is that the ~80 grit pumice is removing a layer. It is resurfacing the obsidian. Eventually the pumice needs to start breaking down. It is defined as friable. I hope it breaks down fairly quickly. It could be that in 6 hours it is still removing more luster/polish. Or 12 or 24 hours. No knowledge of break down rate. Hopefully not too fast as it would be best if it removed a layer of the stone. Then break down to a super nice polish compound and lay a fine polish down. Hard highly polished Mohs 7 coral media is running with it. The coral lost no polish after 3 hours like the obsidian did. And it shouldn't. The coral is harder than the pumice. I will pull coral and obsidian at 6 and 9 hours. Check on it's finish.
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fishnpinball
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Post by fishnpinball on Oct 10, 2017 18:10:48 GMT -5
Looking good. My vibe tends to bruise some of the softer stones, though I haven't noticed that as much with the obsidian ends I have thrown in with agates. Is there an easy way to reduce the amplitude of the vibration by adjusting the weight position? I have some bruising on obsidian too. Especially if the pieces are golf ball/ping pong ball size. Some vibes have adjustments on them. Which one do you have ? I believe it is the amplitude. I would be nervous about constraining the amplitude of the vibration mechanically as it may heat up the motor. I think the best way is by reducing the off-balance if possible. I did have a good up date using the pumice. I did a clean out and started with fresh pumice. Cleaned all AO polish off. After 3 hours the pumice polish on the obsidian is starting to dissappear. The reason that is good is that the ~80 grit pumice is removing a layer. It is resurfacing the obsidian. Eventually the pumice needs to start breaking down. It is defined as friable. I hope it breaks down fairly quickly. It could be that in 6 hours it is still removing more luster/polish. Or 12 or 24 hours. No knowledge of break down rate. Hopefully not too fast as it would be best if it removed a layer of the stone. Then break down to a super nice polish compound and lay a fine polish down. Hard highly polished Mohs 7 coral media is running with it. The coral lost no polish after 3 hours like the obsidian did. And it shouldn't. The coral is harder than the pumice. I will pull coral and obsidian at 6 and 9 hours. Check on it's finish. I have a UV-10. I agree with you that the only way to adjust the amplitude would be to changed the position of the weight, but I am not aware that you can do that on the UV-10 without making some type of modification. I am not afraid of modifications if they are done in a proper fashion. Though having the proper tooling might be an issue. There are lots of machine shops around though. If I can describe what I want done and it is not ridiculous price wise. I also have tumbled a little bit of quartz that I found near the local river. (Rare in this part of Ks) it bruised very badly which surprised me. Probably has something to do with how far it had to come downriver. getting hammered all that journey. And keeping us in the loop is awesome. Looking forward to updates.
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Post by MrP on Oct 10, 2017 18:32:55 GMT -5
I have some bruising on obsidian too. Especially if the pieces are golf ball/ping pong ball size. Some vibes have adjustments on them. Which one do you have ? I believe it is the amplitude. I would be nervous about constraining the amplitude of the vibration mechanically as it may heat up the motor. I think the best way is by reducing the off-balance if possible. I did have a good up date using the pumice. I did a clean out and started with fresh pumice. Cleaned all AO polish off. After 3 hours the pumice polish on the obsidian is starting to dissappear. The reason that is good is that the ~80 grit pumice is removing a layer. It is resurfacing the obsidian. Eventually the pumice needs to start breaking down. It is defined as friable. I hope it breaks down fairly quickly. It could be that in 6 hours it is still removing more luster/polish. Or 12 or 24 hours. No knowledge of break down rate. Hopefully not too fast as it would be best if it removed a layer of the stone. Then break down to a super nice polish compound and lay a fine polish down. Hard highly polished Mohs 7 coral media is running with it. The coral lost no polish after 3 hours like the obsidian did. And it shouldn't. The coral is harder than the pumice. I will pull coral and obsidian at 6 and 9 hours. Check on it's finish. I have a UV-10. I agree with you that the only way to adjust the amplitude would be to changed the position of the weight, but I am not aware that you can do that on the UV-10 without making some type of modification. I am not afraid of modifications if they are done in a proper fashion. Though having the proper tooling might be an issue. There are lots of machine shops around though. If I can describe what I want done and it is not ridiculous price wise. I also have tumbled a little bit of quartz that I found near the local river. (Rare in this part of Ks) it bruised very badly which surprised me. Probably has something to do with how far it had to come downriver. getting hammered all that journey. And keeping us in the loop is awesome. Looking forward to updates. Drill and tap the short side of the weight for a 12-2 bolt then you can change the counter weight by changing the bolt length and amount of washers and nuts. Good luck............MrP
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fishnpinball
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Post by fishnpinball on Oct 10, 2017 18:41:27 GMT -5
I have a UV-10. I agree with you that the only way to adjust the amplitude would be to changed the position of the weight, but I am not aware that you can do that on the UV-10 without making some type of modification. I am not afraid of modifications if they are done in a proper fashion. Though having the proper tooling might be an issue. There are lots of machine shops around though. If I can describe what I want done and it is not ridiculous price wise. I also have tumbled a little bit of quartz that I found near the local river. (Rare in this part of Ks) it bruised very badly which surprised me. Probably has something to do with how far it had to come downriver. getting hammered all that journey. And keeping us in the loop is awesome. Looking forward to updates. Drill and tap the short side of the weight for a 12-2 bolt then you can change the counter weight by changing the bolt length and amount of washers and nuts. Good luck............MrP Thank you for the response. Does anyone out there have a picture of this modification installed?
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ChicagoDave
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Post by ChicagoDave on Oct 10, 2017 19:14:51 GMT -5
I have no secrets I tumbled my obsidian in my QT-66 using 60/90 until shaped properly. Then it was 48 hours for each step in the Lot-O: 120/220 SiC, 500 AO, 1000 AO, Polish So, 8 days total spent in the Lot-O Interested in seeing how this works out for you!
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 1:28:47 GMT -5
I have no secrets I tumbled my obsidian in my QT-66 using 60/90 until shaped properly. Then it was 48 hours for each step in the Lot-O: 120/220 SiC, 500 AO, 1000 AO, Polish So, 8 days total spent in the Lot-O Interested in seeing how this works out for you! Thanks Dave. The pumice interested me as a softer abrasive that may act quicker on the softer obsidian. More importantly, on soft stones in general. Theory being that the softer abrasive will break down quicker. Or better, break down from aprox. 80 grit to polish with out changing abrasives. I had experienced having to run obsidian for similar run times in the vibe. And having to do multiple abrasive steps to get a polish. The glass industry use pumice regularly to polish glass on wheels. Using a wheel and tumbling are 2 different things. And it may only work on glass type material. I added a soft rhyolite in with the pumice load too. Soft because I heat treated the rhyolite and guessing it to be Mohs 5 to 5.5. I tried several attempts to polish it with AO to no avail. Just a matte finish. Maybe the pumice will lay a polish down on the heated rhyolite. If it does it would be a big score for tumble polishing soft rocks too. I am only using small agates for media. Avoiding ceramic media. No big rocks. Any chance I can send you a few of these heat treated rhyolites to toss into your next Lot-O load ? I have already coarse tumbled them. They would be ready for the 120/220 SiC vibe step.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 1:39:17 GMT -5
MrPI know you run a larger hopper on your Vibrasonic. Apparently it will run a 35 pound hopper. I believe that you are supposed to increase the counterweight to run the 35 pound hopper. Did you increase you counterweight for the steel hopper you fabricated ? So playing devil's advocate I thought I may add weight to my 14 pound hopper in an attempt to reduce the vibration to a very fine low amplitude buzz. Adjusting the counterweights too. Or maybe just adjusting the counterweight to minimum counterweight. All in attempt to avoid bruising soft stones. I wish I had an extra Vibrasonic. I would like to put larger sheaves on the motor to increase the counterweight shaft from about 3000 RPM to about 4500 RPM. Then reduce the counterweight. To achieve higher vibration speed with less amplitude. In other words a very high speed vibration rate with a slight movement distance(amplitude). Closer to ultrasound. Closer but no where near anyway. Is this what the counterweight looks like on a Thumler's UV vibe ?
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Post by MrP on Oct 11, 2017 4:27:53 GMT -5
MrP I know you run a larger hopper on your Vibrasonic. Apparently it will run a 35 pound hopper. I believe that you are supposed to increase the counterweight to run the 35 pound hopper. Did you increase you counterweight for the steel hopper you fabricated ? So playing devil's advocate I thought I may add weight to my 14 pound hopper in an attempt to reduce the vibration to a very fine low amplitude buzz. Adjusting the counterweights too. Or maybe just adjusting the counterweight to minimum counterweight. All in attempt to avoid bruising soft stones. I wish I had an extra Vibrasonic. I would like to put larger sheaves on the motor to increase the counterweight shaft from about 3000 RPM to about 4500 RPM. Then reduce the counterweight. To achieve higher vibration speed with less amplitude. In other words a very high speed vibration rate with a slight movement distance(amplitude). Closer to ultrasound. Closer but no where near anyway. Is this what the counterweight looks like on a Thumler's UV vibe ? jamesp fishnpinball Yes that is the counter weight on the UV-18. That one is thick enough to tap for a 1/4" bolt. The counter weight on the UV-10 is only 1/4" thick so it has to be tapped for a smaller screw. All that is happening is putting more weight on the lite side to help smooth out the vibrations. The UV-45 has a weight that looks like that but has a hole on the heavy side with a bolt and extra washers added to it. I just remove some of the washers to settle it down some. For the 'Rough' stage I have no problem with leaving it the way it came but I think it is a little aggressive for polish.
As far as the Viking I am always adjusting the weights depending on the tub I have on and what I have it doing. 100% out of balance really makes things move...........MrP
UV-10
UV-18
UV-45
ETA pictures
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fishnpinball
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Post by fishnpinball on Oct 11, 2017 5:29:31 GMT -5
Thank you both. That picture is exactly what I wanted. Probably take a look and try to do a modify next time I get down time on the vibe. Of course that means I have one more thing to learn how to play with to get nice shinies.
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ChicagoDave
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Post by ChicagoDave on Oct 11, 2017 7:20:41 GMT -5
jamesp, I just recently started by tumbler up again so it will be many months before I have enough to run a Lot-O load. I would be happy to run some pieces for you, but it might be quite some time until it actually happens.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 7:34:42 GMT -5
jamesp, I just recently started by tumbler up again so it will be many months before I have enough to run a Lot-O load. I would be happy to run some pieces for you, but it might be quite some time until it actually happens. Let me know Dave. I was going to send you only a half a dozen one inch tumbles to throw in the batch. 2 or 3 would do the trick.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 7:50:29 GMT -5
MrPIt looks like you added the bolt to reduce counterbalance on UV 10 and UV 18. To smooth action for polish, correct ? If so, does your UV 10/18 still have adequate movement of the rocks when softening the vibration ? Am interested in your motives, curious minds. Mainly because polish seems hard to achieve if vibration is overly violent, especially on softer rocks.
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Post by fantastic5 on Oct 11, 2017 7:52:28 GMT -5
jamesp where did you get your pumice? I have some petoskeys that I need to get started (intended for Christmas for my Mom). I have Robs Lot-O recipe, but I would like to try the pumice on some of the lower quality stones.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 8:17:54 GMT -5
Thank you both. That picture is exactly what I wanted. Probably take a look and try to do a modify next time I get down time on the vibe. Of course that means I have one more thing to learn how to play with to get nice shinies. fish, my Vibrasonic will polish the heck out of Mohs 7 rocks. But softer rocks like obsidian and rhyolite either frosts or only achieves a matte polish. It will do much better if I tumble smaller soft rocks. Larger soft rocks almost frost. The frosting on soft rocks is about proportional to their size. The frosting is worse with increased soft rock size. The matte finish is duller with increased soft rock size. No rocket science there, the bigger rocks hit each other harder in vibratory movement. By the same token, two one pound Mohs 7 rocks in the vibe will frost due to hitting each other. Run only one big rock and there is no frosting. No matter how much or what type of padding or media I have tried, the two big rocks find and damage each other. Mind you, the Vibrasonic has an adjustable counterweight and I have not played with reducing the off balance too much. It appears the manufacturers have designed the vibes for agate and Mohs 7 hardness rocks for the most part. MrP does any of this make sense to you ?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 8:26:45 GMT -5
jamesp where did you get your pumice? I have some petoskeys that I need to get started (intended for Christmas for my Mom). I have Robs Lot-O recipe, but I would like to try the pumice on some of the lower quality stones. Glad you asked Ann. I bought the pumice off of Ebay unawares that it comes in various abrasive grades. I bought the coarsest as that was the only abrasive graded pumice I could find on Ebay; it is size 0-1/2. However, after a bit of research I found a guy selling all 3 pumice grades for his glass polishing, 0-1/2 and 2F and 4F. Only $2 per pound each grade. Here is Ebay link www.ebay.com/itm/Navajo-Pumice-0-1-2-Natural-Mild-Abrasive-Dental-Grade/262388917081?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=561183444559&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649And here is the guy selling 3 grades: Here is a link to his glassworks.com www.hisglassworks.com/learn/loose-abrasives/pumice/I suggest you watch the pumice videos. Especially the 3rd video, 'making mud pies'. He discusses pumice, cerium oxide and silicon carbide in slurries. He uses a cactus bristle brush wheel and a scotch pad. The vibe may have the ability to break down the pumice to much finer abrasive as it does AO and SiC and Cerium. I went ahead and ordered 1 pound of 2F and 4F each from hisglassworks.com
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Oct 11, 2017 9:12:36 GMT -5
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